Forum - View topicNEWS: Virtual YouTuber Minato Aqua's New Aquarium Game Canceled After Her 'Graduation'
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The_Outsider
Posts: 50 |
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Wonder what happened if they're willing to scrap a game halfway through development.
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5577 |
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Probably wasn't even half way. The game was only announced a few months ago. They need her for the game to exist so with her graduating, the game can't exist. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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I think what they're getting at - and I can be wrong, don't want to put words in anyone's mouth - is that if you know you're developing a game, and it seems to be squarely focused on a specific character and motif, why would you make it with the knowledge that character will be gone in a few months and you will not be able to complete or carry on with the game? It may be my ignorance (I know next to nothing about vTubers) but I initially had the same reaction. A "graduation" for a vTuber seems like something that either can be planned well in advance so stuff like this doesn't happen, or is entirely situational/voluntary so that it can be postponed so something like this doesn't happen. The sudden nature of this seems to suggest there was poor planning or communication involved, or some kind of problem (contract negotiations failed with Hololive and the talent for example) and they had no choice but to push the graduation. It is virtually impossible that the game devs would not have a contract in place and that a decent amount of work was already started on the game, so Hololive is going to likely be out some cash for the contract breach (nothing big I imagine, but a penalty nonetheless). |
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Lily Garden
 Posts: 65 |
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Aqua said in her announcement stream that she is leaving Hololive due to wanting to go in a different direction creatively. |
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MFrontier
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All power to her then. |
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enurtsol
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This is what happens when ya base a game on a celebrity
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4788 |
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I'll be the first to admit that I fundamentally do not grok VTubers, but what I really don't get are those who attach themselves to idol-like agencies like this. Isn't a huge part of the appeal of making streaming content that you're your own boss and get to control your own creative output? Why would you willingly sign that over to someone else with the near-certainty that at some point you'll lose the entire persona that you've created? It seems insane to me.
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Nate148
Posts: 509 |
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A. reach B. even without your old char folks know who you are.
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3768 |
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There are a number of reasons, but I think the biggest would be to put yourself in front of a large audience and quickly build a following, at least with regard to the larger agencies. To put some numbers to it, on the VirtualYoutubers subreddit, where you often see small indies promoting themselves, I see indies celebrating getting to 1k subscribers/followers. By comparison, Hololive’s most recent generation of English speaking talents, who debuted a little over a month ago, had all already reached 100k subscribers by the time they debuted and currently have between 260k and 349k subscribers now. Hololive has dozens of talents with over 1 million subscribers, many over 2 million, and the highest at 4.5 million. It’s not impossible to get to those kinds of numbers solely by yourself, but it is rare. Now as you look at smaller and smaller agencies, that audience number goes down, to the point I wonder why someone would go from being an indie vtuber to join a very small agency and get barely more subscribers than you could reasonably get on your own. Other reasons might include more resources for stuff like better models designed by artists who work on games, light novels, etc. that anime fans will recognize, staff to do various things for you, merchandise, and a lot more. It’s not impossible for an indie to get a sizable concert venue to perform on stage on front of an in person crowd, but you’d probably have to have connections with companies that could make that happen. Even virtual 3D concerts are more expensive than most indies could afford to put on. There are probably other reasons that the talents choose to go from being indie to sign with an agency but those are probably the biggest. Also, losing one’s persona is not necessarily the end of the world. Many people will figure out who their subsequent persona is, especially if there is a big brouhaha over it. It’s not great to be clear, but people have their ways of following along, even if everyone doesn’t come along for the ride. |
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medicinodestiny
Posts: 43 |
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The same reason someone would rather be picked up by Disney and star in MCU movie rather than some random indie film or standalone superhero project. (Or is the MCU not popular anymore? I dunno) Despite whatever restrictions you might have working for the corporate Mouse you're going to be in a much better position than someone who isn't. It's a massive head start and benefit to get the "Hololive buff". Even if you lose everything and get fired after a few years you'll still be in a better position than most indies could ever dream of being afterwards even if they usually lose a lot of their audience since people are mostly watching for the Hololive brand. As a viewer I know I can expect a certain degree of professionalism and standards from Hololive. Cover keeps their talent on a tight leash and doesn't really tolerate a lot of unprofessional or bad behavior like I've seen out of plenty of other vtuber companies or individuals which is one reason I generally only bother with Hololive Vtubers. |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 539 |
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Obviously I don't know anything about the situation but "creative differences" is usually an excuse Like actors or directors often leave a project due to "creative differences" and then years later they reveal it was actually because they got treated like crap or hated some coworker with a passion |
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XSp
Posts: 271 |
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For those not in the loop, I'm relatively new to the whole Vtuber world too, but just to share some thoughts.
Minato Aqua's case is not some scandal or sudden happening. Most of her co-workers knew about the situation beforehand. I imagine the game cancelling announcement only came out now because it's after her official retirement announcement, which happened sometime last week. She's staying until the end of the month with regular activities, so it doesn't really look like a bad break or caused by a sudden breach of contract like happened to some other Vtubers in the past. People can trust the official motivation or not, that's your own choice, but to me it seems the most obvious answer. Minato Aqua is from the second generation of Hololive Vtubers, we're currently at the 6th. Each generation adds some 4 to 6 new faces, more or less. But you also have foreign branches and non-numbered ones to add up to that. When she started Hololive was a budding company that was fairly different from what it is today. Overall, Vtubers had a bigger degree of freedom to do what they wanted, and I guess that kinda fits Aqua's personality. She's a known introvert. As the company grew, staff grew, and image grew bigger, responsibilities, rules and whatnot also got bigger and more rigid. This adds to the answer to "what's the point getting into these management corporations" question. The point is not only being backed by a known management staff that takes care of all technical aspects and whatnot behind the scenes, but also cross collaboration with other talents from the same agency, from other agencies, marketing stuff, businesses, sponsorships, organization of events, and all sorts of other things. Hololive also has an Indonesia branch, and a general English branch that has US and UK Vtubers if I'm not mistaken. Oh, for those who don't know, famous shark girl Vtuber Gawr Gura is from Hololive EN's first generation. You can have a measure of how the company grew when you realize she's even doing major league sports collabs. xD Now, I'm not sure of the core issue on Aqua's case, but it might have to do with the growth of Hololive in general, thus creative differences. You can imagine that if you start from a point where you mostly do stuff by yourself with some collabs, but are forced to get to a point where everything you do all year long is collab after collab, major events one after another, with growing sponsorship deals and whatnot replacing regular activities, it can take a huge toll depending on what the Vtuber wants for herself. I'm very saddened by the retirement along with all of her fans and co-workers, but down to Earth analysis, this is probably for the best. It's just that Minato Aqua seems to fit an indie Vtuber profile better than being part of this ever growing Hololive community. And not to scare many fans, but this is quite likely to happen to other early gen Hololive Vtubers too. Lots of people who goes into Vtubing don't really want to go this big, and it takes time to realize that. I'm plenty sure that most of the early gen Vtubers have wondered about all of this. Because there are tons of marvelous things that happened exactly because they were there as part of the agency, but also the amount of pressure, of eyes on them, of potential problems, and important events that they need to participate either because the agency tells them to or because it's almost like a work obligation can take it's toll. It's almost paradoxical, right? I imagine most Vtubers gets into it because they get a far bigger degree of separation between their personal private lives and work/public appearance. But then you are inside an agency that is getting big enough to do collabs with major marketing agencies, do live shows in the biggest venues, have millions of fans all over the world - that almost goes opposite to the relative anonymity they wanted in the first place. |
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